Girl, Where's My Cat?
by Khiori
Summary: Power Girl's (Karen Starr) evil cat has disappeared. Oh, crap.


It was unbelievable.

 _Just plain_ _ **freaking**_ _unbelievable._

She had all the same Kryptonian powers of _Superman._ She could go fist to fist with _Wonder Woman_. Hell, she even owned a company that built stuff _Batman coveted_.

And yet, _in spite of it all_ , she still couldn't find her _own damn cat!_

It was unbelievable.

Karen stared up at her apartment ceiling in sheer exasperation.

 _Why is my life_ _ **like**_ _this?_

She thought about it a moment. Grimaced. And then decided, on second thought, that no, she didn't _actually_ want to know. Given how the Multiverse tended to roll the great cosmic fuzzy pink dice for her, ignorance really _could_ be bliss.

Karen scrubbed her hands hard through her blonde hair, knowing that it would move the style from smoking sassy to disturbingly crazy but not actually caring. She took a deep calming breath and chewed on her bottom lip trying to think. She'd already X-ray scanned the whole apartment twelve times. No mangy fiend from Hell.

 _How does he_ _ **do**_ _it?_

It's not like he could work the doors. Right? _Right?_ Could the thing figure out the deadbolts?

Karen shivered at the thought.

No, no, even that evil intelligence couldn't overcome a lack of thumbs.

Hopefully. Probably. Maybe. She hadn't seen any concrete evidence at least.

What about the windows?

No, the security blocks were still wedged in the runners and though she had caught the wicked monster trying to work them loose before, she'd used a burst of heat vision to weld them in place after that. There was no way even his fangs could chew through that.

Karen double checked them.

 _Phew._

Karen stared around her in utter disbelief.

 _It's like I have Houdini's demented totem animal. What the_ _ **hell?**_

Could he have managed to sneak past her again when she went out the apartment to go to work? Or when she left to pull a Power Girl shift?

When was the last time she had actually _seen_ the brute?

Karen put her hands on her jean clad hips, trying hard to remember.

Today was Saturday. Usually that meant she was at her company, pulling overtime through the weekend so some of her employees could get some family time. But for once, everything was actually caught up and all the projects were right on their development schedules. Weird in itself. Normally that meant she would have just gotten into her Power Girl uniform and spent the day being superhero-y. But because she had piles of laundry, an empty refrigerator, and a bathroom that could be considered a Public Health violation, she'd put on old jeans and a Camp Crystal Lake t-shirt and called it a chore day.

After she had slept in a few extra hours, of course. And then made herself a late breakfast of pancakes with real maple syrup and slathers of butter in her Smiley Face flannel jams and _Zombies Eat Brains: Don't Worry You're Safe_ tank.

Because it was an actual day _off_ and she wasn't _crazy_.

Karen crinkled her nose.

Well, maybe a _little_. I _am_ Huntress' BFF.

She thought about that a bit.

 _Okay, maybe a little more than a little._

Karen frowned.

She knew she hadn't seen the fuzzy horror in her bed this morning—or she wouldn't have been able to sleep in the extra. The cat had an evil streak a continent wide. Letting his- _long_ -overworked-and- _utterly_ -deserving-of-a- _few_ -extra-hours-snuggling-in- _completely_ -comfortable-blankets-on-a- _brand_ - _new_ -pillow person would have been like finding Krispy Kreme Donuts in the JL cafeteria.

Not. Gonna. Happen. Period.

Had she seen him at breakfast?

 _Did I actually get to eat my pancakes?_

Yep.

Then _nope_ , no cat at breakfast.

What about when I got dressed?

Karen looked down at herself. The old jeans weren't sporting any new rips in their collection and the t-shirt didn't have any more holes in it than she remembered from the last time she'd dragged it out of her dresser for a chore day. And there wasn't a single clump of nasty greasy tabby hair on either of them.

Hmm. Freaky. Nope, no cat then either.

What had she done after that?

Karen pursed her lips. Then snarled a bit. _Grocery shopping_. She _hated_ grocery shopping. It ranked right up there on her favored list between JL mandatory meetings and Vartox. There was nothing worse than being crammed into a mass of rude shoving women and idiot leering men, while having to push a loaded cart all over hell just to get a measly deal on the bulk purchasing. But she was smart enough to know that it was best to just get the worst crap out of the way first.

Now, she eyed her cupboards.

The cans all still had their identifying labels on them, the boxed goods hadn't been peed on, the glass bottles weren't broke and in her recycling, and the plastic stuff hadn't been eaten and barfed up on her dvd collection. So in other words, she had a normal person's cupboards.

So, obviously, no cat.

It just plain wasn't _right_.

 _This is beginning to feel like a two in the morning Twilight Zone rerun._

What had she done then? She tapped her finger against her chin, thinking.

 _Right._ She'd tackled the cleaning of the apartment next. Which sucked, but significantly less than grocery shopping.

Had she seen the cat when she was cleaning?

Karen snorted. Of course not, _idiot_ —when has the furry demon ever let me clean without trying to kill the vacuum, trick me into putting my hand in the garbage disposal or drown me in the toilet?

So she hadn't seen the cat when she was cleaning.

What had she done next?

Laundry.

Karen snatched her keys off the table and bolted out her door. She didn't bother waiting for the elevator; she just blew through the stairwell door, took a second to make sure no one was actually in it, and then just jumped straight down all the flights to the bottom floor. She jerked open the metal door to the basement, being careful not to rip it off its hinges—again—and dove into the complex's laundry room. She lucked out, nobody was there either so she concentrated and sent a heavy duty sweep of X-ray vision through all the machines, the rolling bins, and the storage closets.

No cat.

Phew.

She'd almost had PETA on her the last time the one-eyed monster had plotted some new evil on her and had snuck into her laundry basket and Karen had tossed him accidentally into the washing machine.

She was still rather put out about that. After all, it wasn't as if she had actually _tried_ to kill the evil thing!

Well . . . _that_ time.

And since Huntress didn't actually go through with it, she really didn't think anyone could count that time either.

She scowled. Where was the justice in the world these days? That giant devil tried to kill her all the time—how the hell _wasn't_ turnabout fair play?

 _And why the hell didn't I just X-ray scan straight down from my apartment?!_

Karen looked up. And winced. _Oh, yeah._ The nasty old dude who held the apartment below her's. With the really, _really_ not right fetish.

Karen went back out the laundry room.

And froze halfway up the stairwell in sudden horror.

 _Could the thing be loose in the building?_

For a moment Karen thought she might actually faint. Then she realized that she couldn't hear any hysterical screaming or gun fire and sighed hugely in sheer relief.

She hurried up the rest of the way and got back inside her apartment.

Then she did a thirteenth X-ray scan of the place, just in case the malevolent humored thing had somehow gotten himself back inside and was either lying in wait to ambush her with new kryptonite claws or hiding and laughing manically to himself at his newest plot to drive her insane.

Nope. _Damn._

 _This is unbelievable!_

The cat's like a demented Justice Lord Batman.

Karen kicked off her tennis in frustration, though she was careful not to embed them into the wall this time and padded on angry bare feet with blue painted toes to the apartment's living room.

Okay, okay, _damn_ it, I'm freaking _Power Girl_. I've _got_ this.

 _What would Huntress do?_

She'd look for clues.

Karen stared around the living room, trying to see if anything was out of the ordinary.

Well, beyond that it was both clean and demon cat free.

Even if she hadn't used her X-ray vision to scan her apartment already, she would have known instantly that the cat wasn't here.

Because it was _still undestroyed_.

The dark leather couch had no new wicked claw graffiti carved psychotically into her favorite section. The stacks of business magazines and unread comics in the corner had not been shredded into maniacal cat confetti like some guilty Secretary of State's incriminating document list. There were no sweet Tootsie Roll 'presents' left atop the television remote _precisely_ over the 'power' button. And there weren't any steaming vomit piles of half digested Salmon Pate or disgusting snarls of garbage scented fur the size of the President's toupée on display all over the carpet.

At least she _hoped_ that thing was a toupee.

But there also wasn't anything telling _why_ there wasn't a cat sadistically doing any of that, either.

No walls with neatly suddenly revealed secret crawlspaces, abandoned Mother Boxes, or even left over inexplicable black magic hex residues.

Huh.

Karen went to the kitchen.

Same thing.

No decapitated superhero action figure plugged sink pulling an awesome Niagara Falls Mini Me. No taunting open freezer door with her favorite and _most expensive_ ice cream flavors dumped out, cartons worked open, and insides licked all over. There was no used kitty litter mixed merrily into her cold cereal dispensers. The gas stove wasn't actually three seconds from exploding into a Discovery Channel supernova reenactment; there wasn't any pee in her _Greetings from Smallville: The Place to Be!_ coffee mug, and the Fort Knox level locked trash can lid was still _unpried_ —which meant she could still _see_ her kitchen floor instead of a nauseating brilliant art piece expressing the inner machinations of the cat mind with gnawed takeout chicken bones, hairy molding strawberries, and used ketchup packets.

And there was also no freshly dug-with-a-spoon tunnels to freedom across the Border, alien Stargates lying around, or any Norse God divine cosmic teleportation symbols burned conveniently into the tiles of her kitchen floor, either.

It was actually beginning to seriously freak her out.

Karen went down to the bathroom.

 _Damn it._

The child locking toilet lid was still down and the _entire roll_ of toilet paper was exactly where it actually was _supposed to be_ —not wedged with wicked brilliance into the toilet bowl trap and the handle then with demented OC glee pushed over and over until she was the proud owner of lake front property. The new Friday the 13th shower curtain she'd just bought off of Amazon had not yet be homicidally clawed into a Harley Quinn style pvc plastic rendition of a Hippie Love Child Curtain. And her favorite pink fluffy bath towel had not been used as an alternative source cat litter box again.

And there was also no conveniently hidden doors in a grandfather clock, a jury-rigged teleporting Librarian backdoor, or even a city bus pass.

 _This is not right._

Like _super villain_ level not right.

Like a _Superman_ or _Wonder Woman_ super villain level not right—not _Power Girl_ super villain level not right.

Karen stopped.

 _I can't believe I just thought that._

She growled.

 _Someone is going to die for this._

Karen went to her bedroom.

 _Son of a—_

Karen groaned in frustration and yanked on her hair with both fists.

The room was exactly as she had left it after cleaning. _Exactly._

There were no neatly limb severed dead mice lying on her pillow like some sort of Bates Motel mints for her evening before bed enjoyment. Not a _single_ one of her dress pump heels had become the hell fiend's soothing teething ring. There were no gagged up slimy reeking hairballs hidden with loving menace throughout the clothes in her dresser drawers like a Lara Croft treasure hunt. And the new Power Girl Funko's eyes had not yet been sweetly gouged out with razor sharp claws.

There were no molecular destabilization evidences that some freaky parallel earth vortex thingy had opened up and sucked the wicked brute through to an AU Power Girl's apartment. There weren't any scraps of Cosmic Paper lying around proving some newbie Writer had decided to Boost Ratings by writing off a fan beloved stinky furred side character to provoke conflict interest. And the fire escape outside her window was still retracted.

 _Stay calm, Karen. You're a big girl. Think!_

She chewed on her lip anxiously.

 _Okay, not in the apartment. Not in the complex._

Her blue eyes went huge and she immediately threw an X-ray scan of the surrounding city as far as she could push it.

Nothing. _Nothing!_

 _Where the hell is my cat?!_

 _And how many people is he going to eat before I can recapture him?_

Karen could now begin to feel the first niggling of a full blow Kryptonian panic attack coming on. She took deep breaths and tried to stay focused.

 _Think, girl! This isn't the time to freak out. You need to figure out what the hell is going on and NOW!_

 _Okay, okay! Uhmm, yeah! Do what Huntress does and run through the evidence!_

What did she know?

She knew the cat _wasn't_ in the apartment because: A: X-ray vision conformed the little psycho was gone; B. she'd actually had a nice day at home so far; and C. all the work she'd just put into cleaning the place hadn't been promptly destroyed by an Extinction Level Event cat, nor had she suffered any forms of torture or any murder attempts while trying to clean said place.

She also knew the cat _wasn't_ loose in the complex because: A: X-ray vision confirmed the demonic beast wasn't; B. there _still_ wasn't any sounds of combat or horrible suffering deaths going on in the halls; and C. nor where there any sounds of screaming ambulances, hysterical SWAT, or Homeland Security terrorist response teams calling for a nuke option, either.

What _didn't_ she know?

She _didn't_ know how the brimstone boy had escaped because; A: she had _already_ locked, booby trapped, walled off or used superpowers to close off all the cat's _previous_ devious escape points and none of them had obviously been compromised; and B: there was _no_ damn evidence of any _new_ devious escape points.

And she _didn't_ know when the evil imp had _actually_ vanished because; A: she couldn't remember when she had last seen the thing, it was probably some form of mental self-protection thing; and B: she usually tried to pretend the cat didn't exist anyway, also probably some form of mental self-protection thing.

 _There's something really, really, wrong here. Well, besides the cat that is. Something really important that I'm missing here. What is it? What is it?_

Karen used her X-ray vision on her apartment, then the complex, and then out into the city again as far as she could reach.

 _Still nothing. Nothing. No cat._

And then it hit her like Darkseid. Or lunch off a food truck.

 _Exactly. Nothing!_

For all its dark powers of evil, the cat couldn't have gotten out of the apartment, the complex and get beyond the limits of her X-ray vision _on his own._ He had no thumbs, no friends, and she always kept her credit cards at Helena's.

 _And that meant he had to have had help._

And because _not even the sweetest, most compassionate, most cat loving of superheroes_ , couldn't be paid even the absolute most _obscene_ Bruce Wayne level amounts of legitimate cold hard _cash_ to take that cat—she knew, she'd _tried_ —then that _could only mean one thing_.

There had to be a villain involved. With an evil plot. To destroy the world. Using the most vicious and deadly weapon of mass destruction and human misery ever created.

 _Her cat._

Karen closed her blue eyes as tight as she could and focused desperately for a few minutes again on just breathing.

 _Don't freak out! Don't freak out! You've got this! You've totally got this! Just don't freak out! Think! Think, think, think!_

But she suddenly found that she _couldn't_. _Because she was beginning to freak out seriously._

Because all she _could_ think about was the possible horrors that were _about_ to happen _to all of humanity_ if she didn't find that cat and get it back into containment _immediately_.

 _That's it, girl, time to get backup before you become responsible for the Apocalypse!_

Karen ran out to the living room and snagged her smart phone off the table. She hit the first selection on the phone directory and punched it through.

 _Come on, come on, come on!_

An INTJ dark heroine pissed off growl came through the open line. " _Do you know what time it is?!_ "

Karen groaned and face palmed. " _Hel, it's_ _three in the damn_ _afternoon!_ "

"I live in _Gotham_ , woman _! In my time, that's_ _three in the damn_ _morning!_ "

Karen just cringed. Pissing off Huntress never went well.

 _Ever._

Even for _Batman_.

"Look," she said desperately, "I need your help!"

Some pretty inventive Italian cursing came through the line.

"This is _serious_ , Hel! I'm completely ready to _freak_ out over here. Scratch that. _I am freaking out over here!_ I've even spent the last _twenty minutes_ trying to figure it out like you do!"

Her super hearing caught Helena's alarmed inhalation.

"Oh, _damn_. Shit just got real."

" _You think?!_ "

" _What happened?_ "

Karen took a deep breath, trying to keep it together. "I don't want to alarm you unduly but- _he's not here, he's not here, he's not here!_ "

There was a moment of complete and total horrified shock on the other end of the line. Then—

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil-"

" _Helena!_ "

"Be respectful! I'm trying to protect us here!"

" _Helena!_ "

"Girl! I don't know how to tell you this but that Thing is _possessed of the Devil!_ Or the Devil Himself. I haven't yet determined which. Either way, you don't need _me_ , you need a _priest!_ And if that _demonic Spawn of Hell itself_ is loose in the _public_ , you also need the _Justice League!_ _Like all of them._ Maybe the Titans. What am I thinking?! _Must still be asleep._ Definitely need the Titans, too. We can use them as body shields."

" _Helena!_ "

"Hey, not all of us have invulnerable skin!"

"Helena, there's no way I'm going to tell the Justice League or the Titans that I lost _the cat!_ "

"Karen, you're a _super heroine_ , you have a moral obligation to try and save as many innocent lives as you can!"

" _Ahhh!_ That's why I'm calling _you!_ I don't want to cause another _Crisis_ ; I just _barely_ got some sort of _life_ worked out for me! I just want to get the _damn cat back_ before all hell breaks loose and our Multiverse _goes with it!_ _Is that simple enough for you to understand?!_ "

The snarl that came through the phone was pure Huntress. "If you're going to act like _Batman_ , I'm not going to _help!_ "

" _Hel,_ _listen to me!_ This isn't a Belle Reve prison break here! It's not just that he's _not in the apartment!_ It's that there are no signs of how he got out, there are no bodies in the complex, and yet the entire city hasn't been put on Orange Alert. _Use that Bat Family brain of yours and_ _tell me I'm wrong about what I think that means!_ "

There was total silence on the other end for a moment.

"Oh, oh, _damn_. Someone's _taken_ the Fiend of the Eternal Pit. We're all going to _die_."

" _Yes!_ _Now_ , you see why just a _little_ concerned over here? I mean this is like _Joker getting a_ _nuke!_ "

"Okay, okay, let's not panic, yet. Nothing's happened yet, right?"

"Right!"

Helena took a deep breath and went into her Huntress mode. "Okay. So that means we've still got a little time to come up with a plan."

Karen stopped. "Wait, _what?_ You've actually _met_ the cat and you're _Bat Clan_ —why don't you _already_ have a plan for this?"

Helena sighed. "Two points. One, I'm like the illegitimate red headed foster stepchild of the family so technically I'm not really _officially_ part of the Bat Club; and two, meeting Satan's Kitty gave me extreme PTSD and I've had to spend all my normal In Case All Hell Breaks Loose Contingency Planning Time in a _psychologist's office_."

"Oh." Karen blinked. Oddly those weird points calmed her down. _Huh._

 _Who would have thought Huntress to be a soothing influence on Power Girl?_

Wisely, she didn't mention this fascinating bit of new enlightenment to Helena.

Huntress was already focusing on her coming hunt. "But I can't make any plans if I don't know everything that happened. I'm putting you on speaker so I can start suiting up. Now, I need you to _think_. Did you see the Dark Imp today?"

"No."

"Okay, what about last night?"

Karen scrunched her nose up, thinking. And then brightened. "Yes! There was this whole microwave incident at dinner. I don't think he gets the whole Kryptonian physiology thing. That or he's just hoping my powers flux again and he can catch me at the perfectly vulnerable moment. My bet's on that one. He's got almost a Batman patience."

"And that's why I'm bringing my crossbow to this."

" _Hah!_ You didn't shoot him last time when I _begged!_ "

"True. But I've gone to Confession since and received forgiveness for the sin. This time the Cat of Cain dies."

"Well, you go, girl. He's got Hitler's Own Luck."

" _Which eventually wore off._ Karen, stay focused. What happened next?"

Karen thought about it. "I had to bathe him."

"Wait, _what?_ _Damn_ it, he figured out my new lock already?"

Karen brightened. "Not yet! You should really think about taking out a patent on that one."

"But if he couldn't get to the garbage, what-"

"He vomited on the bathroom floor, rolled in it and then added a nice crispy outer crust with another good roll in the litter pan."

"That . . . that . . . I got nothing for that. Couldn't you have just held him under a bit?"

Karen sighed and rubbed her face. "Helena, the city sanitation guys really freak out if they find dead household pets in your trash."

Helena sighed. "I can't believe this."

"It's true! There are fines and-"

"I'm talking about how you've completely overlooked the fact that you have _super powers_. You could use heat vision to turn the Swift and Evil Bastard to _ash_ and just _sweep_ him out the damn door. Or your Kryptonian strength and _throw_ his wretched stinking body high enough that it _burns up_ on re-entry. Hell, you could even just _fly_ the body out to the middle of the ocean and _dump it in_."

Karen sank down to the carpet and then slowly laid back. The sudden guilty silence told everything.

"Oh, for the love-" Helena sighed. "You haven't actually overlooked them, have you?"

"No," admitted Karen quietly. She covered her eyes with her arms in shame.

" _Damn_ it! I _knew_ it! _I knew it!_ You've actually grown _attached_ to the Fallen Angel's Pet, _haven't you?_ "

"Ah," Karen bit her lip, guiltily. "Well-"

"Karen!"

"Look, he's not _always_ evil!" she protested. "Sometimes, sometimes he can be . . . well, he can be almost _just bad_."

A soulful sigh came through the phone. "You make me want to drink, you know that, right? I thought you said you didn't come out with traumatic brain injury from that whole Harley thing."

Karen sat straight up in outrage. " _Hey!_

"Or is this just some newly surfacing psychological response to the loss of our parallel universe?"

Karen growled. "Keep it up, choir girl, and the cat's going to find a new home in _Gotham_."

"Karen, don't be evil, you'll end up in Hell."

"I'm Kryptonian! We don't _have_ Hell!"

"Everyone has a Hell, Karen, you and I both know that all too well. You're just calling yours 'The Phantom Zone'."

Karen's blue eyes went huge and her jaw dropped.

"What? Never thought of that before?"

Karen sputtered.

"Now, if you want to love the feline equivalent of the Snake from the Garden of Eden, that is your suicide watch, not mine. But we need to find your evil love bunny before _it ends the world as we know it_!"

"I didn't say I loved it!"

"It's still _alive_ isn't it?"

"Uh, yes?"

"Love."

Karen was furious for a moment. Then she remembered something.

" _Oh yeah?!_ Then if letting it live is a sign of love _then why didn't you shoot it before?_ "

Helena merely gave a dignifiedly dismissive sniff. "It is love-"

" _Ha!_ "

"—just not for the Spawn of Satan."

Karen blinked, caught completely off guard, and suddenly thought she might actually cry. " _Really?_ That's . . . that's so _sweet_ , Helena."

" _Ugh_. I'm _INTJ_ , Karen, don't get emotionally mushy on me or you'll be tracking down your Fiend of Darkness _yourself_."

Karen grinned. "I'm _so_ going to hug you when I see you."

"And that is a totally _negative_ , Ghost Rider. INTJ, woman, _INTJ_. Respect the space or get shot."

"Love you back."

A hugely put upon huff came out of the phone. "Yeah, well, you're blonde, so there you go. Now can we drop this Peace, Love, and Happiness shit and get back to, I don't know, that whole _saving the world from apocalypse thing?_ "

"Still hugging."

"Still going to shoot you."

"Kryptonian."

"Kryptonite."

Karen laughed. This was going to be okay now. She lay back on her carpet to think. "Okay, let's see, microwave. Bath." Her brows drew together as she began to re-piece yesterday's evening. "Sorted laundry so I could do it today. Five times because he kept eating the socks."

"An _idiot_ Evil Cat."

"I now have a pile of unmatched socks."

"A _Batman_ Evil Cat."

"Wrote my grocery list. He peed on it."

"Did you have chia seeds on it?"

Karen frowned. "Yeah, why?"

"Okay, you totally earned that one."

Karen snorted. "Not every food needs to come from Italy to be good, Hel."

"And that's _exactly_ where you went wrong. Then what?"

"I put my giant pile of grocery totes by the door for today, so I wouldn't forget them when I went to the car this time. Then it was just our usual pre-bedtime fight over who gets the bed."

"Please tell me you actually won this time?"

Karen sniffed. "Yes!"

Helena snickered. "The big badass _Power Girl_ slept on the floor again, didn't you?"

"No!" Karen blushed bright red defensively and glared at her phone. "And for the record, I only take the carpet _occasionally_ because I'm _invulnerable_ and the carpet doesn't hurt my back like it does his hips."

"There's just so very much wrong here that I don't even know where to start. Then what?"

"Then we slept. He tried to kill me a few times during the night-"

"Nice."

"—but I think he just wasn't into it because he gave up after only like five times."

"This is why you don't have a boyfriend, you know that right?"

"Shut it, you."

"Did you see the Furry Destroyer of Life when you woke up?"

Karen sighed. "No. And I should have known immediately something was wrong when I got to sleep in. Or when I had pancakes. Or went grocery shopping. Or did laundry. Or cleaned the apartment. Everything was _normal_. I _never_ have normal."

"It's called _karma_ , suck it up buttercup." Helena made a sudden revelation noise. " _Wait._ That's exactly what you did today?"

"It's a chore day, Hel. _Chores_."

"Focus, Blondie. You said there wasn't any sign of entry or exit, right? And you checked the building, complex and surrounding city with X-ray, right?"

Karen crossed her arms in a bit of a huff. "I'm not a _complete_ idiot, Hel."

" _Yeah_ , that's sweet." Helena chuckled. "And I got this."

Karen sat up instantly. "You know what happened?"

A bit of Huntress smugness drifted through the phone. "You didn't bother checking those grocery totes when you took them from the apartment to your car, did you?"

"I-Oh, _shit_. I can't believe I- _Wait_ , my car's in the complex lot, I already scanned-" Karen felt ill as at last she figured it out. She buried her head in her arms in shame. "He tricked me."

"It's okay, girl, you don't live in Gotham, you're not used to the brilliance of absolute evil. He stopped trying to kill you last night because he had to weasel himself into those totes while you slept. You hate grocery shopping so you are _always_ in an irritated hurry to get it over with as soon as possible. I know this and I don't even live with you. He may have only one eye but its pure wickedness and he's _always watching_. You just grabbed the pile and put it in your car without even thinking about him trying one of his usual sneaky escape attempts. And the _reason_ you didn't think about him trying anything is _because_ . . . ."

Karen sighed, "He hadn't done anything _wrong_ that whole morning."

"Exactly. Out of sight, out of mind. And since you grocery shop outside your own city like most capes for security purposes, that's out of even your Kryptonian long distance vision."

Karen stared up at her ceiling. "And that means . . . ."

"There's no _actual_ villain in this piece—beyond one wearing wretchedly foul fur—only an _idiot_ super heroine who got careless."

Karen groaned, utterly relieved and completely mortified at the same time. "Thanks, Helena."

"You're welcome. And you seriously owe me for waking me up just to deal with your own stupidity. I'll collect. Because I'm a bitch like that. Now we finish this. Though I am curious and actually rather intensely _alarmed_ as to why there is _still_ nothing on the news of Evil Incarnate on the loose. He's had _hours_ of wanton destruction now but there's _nothing_ on any of the frequencies I'm monitoring. How is this even _possible?_ There's _no way_ the Mangy Cat of the Apocalypse hasn't been _noticed_ by now."

But Karen gasped in sudden understanding horror. "Oh, _yes_ _there is!_ "

Karen scramble off the carpet and ran for her uniform. "I'm coming to get you in _five!_ "

"What? _Why?_ Karen, just where the hell is he _at?_ " demanded Helena.

"The one place on the entire earth where his evil chaos would go entirely _unnoticed_." Karen began stripping as fast as she could. " _Costco_."

"Oh, _shit_." Helena swore. "I'm calling for the Justice League and Titans _now_."

Karen shivered in genuine fear and tried to dress faster. "Find the number for the Avengers, too, while you're at it. It's _sample day_."


End file.
